A Georgia lawmaker and former business executive says the economy is seeing historic gains under President Donald Trump.

“This is the greatest economic turnaround in U.S. history, 5 million new jobs … we’re growing the economy,” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., told the Thursday morning crowd of conservatives gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“The Obama administration … by the way, that was eight years [of] the lowest economic growth in U.S. history,” Perdue said.

He said that all Americans, not just some, are seeing the benefits of the Trump economy, especially since the president signed Republican lawmakers’ tax cuts into law on Dec. 22, 2017.

“We’ve got … the lowest unemployment in 50 years, [and the] lowest African-American, Asian, and Hispanic unemployment ever,” Perdue said. “So this is moving in the right direction.”

Perdue spoke during a discussion of the national debt moderated by Tim Chapman, executive director of Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of The Heritage Foundation.

“Taxes were not the government’s money in the first place,” Chapman said at one point. “It was the people’s money in the first place.”

Perdue also touted the success of Republicans’ tax reform package, which Adam Michel, an analyst on tax policy and the federal budget at The Heritage Foundation, says has allowed a typical family of four to get a $2,917 tax cut this year.

Over the next 10 years, due to the growing economy, Michel predicts, an ordinary American “will benefit from over $26,000 more in take-home pay, or $44,697 for a family of four.”

“What we found is, if [we] do the right things and what we believe, we can get good results,” Perdue, former CEO of Dollar General, said. “We passed the historic tax bill … and last year alone, a trillion dollars of our [corporate] inversion gross profits came back into the economy. So collectively, we’ve freed up about $6 trillion to go back into this economy.”

Perdue charged the CPAC crowd to keep their lawmakers honest.

“I believe that we, you and I, can have an impact on this town, but we have got to maintain accountability of the people that we put in office,” he said.

CPAC, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, runs through Saturday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington.

Hundreds of Cook County residents turned out for shrimp, chicken, iced tea and a chance to hear from elected officials Friday.

Crowds packed the gymnasium at the Adel Church of God for the 11th Annual Cook County Courthouse Fish Fry.

The annual fish fry was inspired by former Sheriff D.J. Connell’s weekly fish fries with state troopers, judges, and others in the judicial circuit to promote fellowship, friendship and community continuity, said Cook County Probate Court Judge Chase Daughtrey

Among the featured speakers was Sen. David Perdue.

Perdue, a Republican, spoke about efforts to get hurricane relief on its way to South Georgia, Daughtrey said. An attempt was made to include that aid in the continuing resolution that ended the partial federal government shutdown but failed, he said.

The Senate intends to take up the issue soon.

Daughtrey said the senator also talked about border security, including a trip he recently took to the Mexican border with the U.S. Border Patrol.

Perdue’s group met three people who came across the border illegally and talked about how they paid cartels to smuggle them across, Daughtrey said.

“We introduced this resolution because the United States is racing towards a fiscal cliff,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who is sponsoring the legislation, said. “Congress is taking few measures to solve this problem, and it is beyond time for our colleagues in both chambers to become serious about balancing the nation’s budget and recognize this issue as a threat to our national security.”

A similar resolution was introduced last year on the House side, but this time sponsors were able to get some support from Senate colleagues. Biggs has been working with Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga. — a vocal advocate for addressing the debt who even has a debt clock in his office — on a similar resolution in the upper chamber.

“The single greatest threat to our national security is our national debt, and it’s time Washington comes to grips with that reality,” Perdue told Fox News. “This month, our national debt topped $22 trillion. This news should have sounded alarms throughout Washington, but bureaucrats and career politicians didn’t even blink an eye.”

The House resolution aims to not only recognize the debt as a national security crisis, but also restore so-called “regular order” to the appropriations process and address the “fiscal crisis,” according to text of the bill provided to Fox News. The bill has 37 original co-sponsors, and Perdue is still looking for co-sponsors in the Senate.

The measure comes as the debt-ceiling deadline looms in Washington once again, though this time the March 1 deadline isn’t sounding alarm bells. The Treasury Department is expected to use available cash on hand to fund the government through the summer, allowing lawmakers to avoid the debt fight this time around, according to analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

“Congress has bought itself quite a bit of breathing room with this most recent suspension,” Shai Akabas, BPC’s director of economic policy, said in a statement earlier this month. “But that doesn’t mean lawmakers should ignore the debt limit until the next critical deadline.”

Republicans, many of whom were elected on fiscal issues and a commitment to addressing the national debt, have been accused of hypocrisy now that a member of their own party is in the White House. Even in their own ranks, members have accused party leadership of abandoning fiscal principles.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., admonished his fellow members last year over the budget and spending increases. His opposition actually led to a short government shutdown.

“If you were against President Obama’s deficits and now you’re for the Republican deficits isn’t that the very definition of hypocrisy?” Paul said on the Senate floor last year. “Don’t you remember when Republicans howled to high heaven that President Obama was spending us into the gutter, spending us into oblivion?”

Leaders in the national security community have also made their concerns known about the massive debt. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats listed the debt as a national security concern last year in a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“This situation is unsustainable as I think we all know and represents a dire threat to our economic and national security,” Coats said.

Whether the new resolutions will bring the debt issue to the political forefront again remains unclear, but sponsors of the resolutions say it is one they remain committed to addressing.

“Ultimately, the debt impacts our ability to fund priorities, like providing our men and women in uniform with the resources they need to protect Americans,” Perdue said. “This debt crisis will only get worse, and if we don’t act now, our country will lose the ability to do the right thing.”

U.S. Senators David Perdue (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) announced they will introduce a stand-alone disaster relief package to provide critical funding for Georgia and other states recovering from recent natural disasters, including Hurricane Michael.

“Enough is enough. Georgia and other states across the country are hurting from historic hurricanes and devastating wildfires, and the federal government continues to drag its feet,” said Senator Perdue, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “In October, President Trump and Vice President Pence both saw the devastation firsthand and promised to help Georgia and other states rebuild. It’s long past time to make good on these promises. For farmers in Georgia, it’s not a matter of putting a crop in the ground this year – it’s a matter of putting a crop in the ground ever again. I will continue to fight for disaster relief until our farmers and rural communities have the resources they need to recover.”

“The biggest immediate crisis facing Georgia today is the relief money needed for the lost agricultural products from the hurricanes that have hit here and in other states,” said Senator Isakson. “We are in crisis mode for our farmers and agricultural community, and we will not stop until we get needed aid for those who have suffered devastation. Additional losses grow every day we wait, and it’s far past time we fulfill the promises that were made. Supplemental disaster funding was overwhelmingly supported in funding proposals voted on earlier this year, so there shouldn’t be a reason for further delay on a supplemental disaster relief package to provide critical aid for Georgians.”

The senators plan to introduce a supplemental funding package after the U.S. Senate reconvenes on February 25 that includes $3 billion to provide critical agriculture disaster relief for farmers recovering in the wake of Hurricane Michael, along with additional funds for communities in Georgia and other states. Senators Perdue and Isakson have vowed to continue raising this issue in the Senate until Congress approves disaster funding.

Background:

On November 30, 2018, Perdue and Isakson sent two letters requesting additional funding for disaster assistance for Georgians recovering after Hurricane Michael: the first letter to Senate appropriators and the second to Senate leadership.

On January 31, Perdue and Isakson introduced a supplemental agriculture disaster relief amendment to provide critical funding for Georgia and other states recovering from recent hurricane and wildfire damage.

On February 13, Perdue and Isakson joined 11 other bipartisan senators in sending a letter to House and Senate leadership urging immediate action on a supplemental disaster relief package.

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) talked about his trip to the southern border and said the crisis is “staggering.”

Sen. Perdue visited the border on early Monday morning with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) to see the border security crisis firsthand. The two Republicans saw illegal crossing hotspots and received real-time briefings from border patrol agents.

Perdue and Daines’ trip came as Congress works on passing a potential compromise bill that would provide a fraction of President Donald Trump’s requested $5.7 billion in border wall funding, as well as increased border patrol officers.

Sen. Perdue said that he has gained a different perspective from his trip to the border and called the security crisis, “staggering.” He said:

I have a different perspective coming back from the border. We were out there all night with border patrol agents who were apprehending people crossing there illegally. It was shocking to see the security crisis there on the ground. There are Mexican drug cartels right across the river who are violently opposing each other and trying to dominate that sector. So, there are a lot of drugs coming across that border. Both at the POEs (Ports of Entry) but also literally on rafts coming across the river. So we saw the rafts, we saw the scouts, we saw the mules as they call them that actually bring drugs across in open daylight. It was staggering.